If you’ve suffered the agony of watching your garbage pile-up and got no answers from the local civic body for a long time, there is good news as soon, a method to ensure responsibility in timely lifting of garbage might be in place after the environment ministry received a rap from the Karnataka
High Court.

Earlier rules shifted the onus of removing segregated home garbage to nearest separate bins on residents and even allowed municipal bodies to levy a fee for the same. The biggest bone of contention was that it failed to stipulate basic responsibilities for the municipal bodies such as removing waste within a specified time period.

“It was one of 57 grounds on which the draft rules were challenged by us,” said Leo Saldanha of Bangalore based Environment Support Group, adding that it led to ministry law officer telling the court that the rules were being withdrawn.

Previously, the rules had absolved municipal bodies of its basic responsibilities such as daily collection of garbage from homes and restaurants, not allowing stray animals on streets and preventing littering.

The ministry is re-working the rules and officials say there would be a mechanism to allow citizens to lodge complaint against municipal officers refusing to remove garbage in a stipulated time frame. As per the framework being suggested, there would be a designated officer in each municipal or local body to hear resident complaints.